“We pass the ball and we have fun,” Lieb said. “We’ve played together for a long time, and we played AAU (together).”

Portales has won all but two of its games by double figures and is coming off of a 53-7 rout of Ruidoso Saturday. The Rams jumped out to a 20-0 lead early, then backed off of the press and went to their bench.

None of the players go above 5-foot-10 — the height of center Eduardo Chavez — but they’ve been trying to reach new heights since Tellez gave them a challenge.

“At the beginning of the season, he showed us the banner,” said forward Jordan Hill, referring to a banner of the 2001-02 team that Tellez coached to a 13-2 mark. “He challenged us to try to beat that.”

Mission accomplished. Regardless of today’s result, Portales has beaten that mark, but now aims to be the first Ram squad to have a perfect season since a junior high girls squad finished undefeated in 1976.

“We’d be the only (boys) team in Portales that ever did it,” said guard Andrew Villanueva.

Tellez is quick to mention that the “A” team isn’t the only seventh-grade team with talent. He noted that the “B” team went 10-4 on the season, and only lost to other schools’ “A” teams.